Chapter-4-2

⁠—⁠—⁠— II ⁠—⁠—⁠—

One twist later, the Sem tribes fell upon the eagerly advancing Mongauli army. This time, the Mongauli were ready. Their hands unbound, free to return the Sem attack and keep pushing, their spirits were high, and the thought of battle only increased their morale.

“The Sem come!”

A sentry posted on the ridge of a dune just ahead of the foremost riders saw a thin line of dust rising from the shadow on the dune’s far side and quickly raised the alarm. The response from the men was immediate and enthusiastic.

“We’ve found them!”

“Finally!”

“Our friends have returned!”

“Tonight we feast, men!”

Shouts rose throughout the formation.

“Keep your voices down. The Sem might suspect something,” one of the knights called out, warily thumbing the hilt of his sword.

“Nonsense,” replied a companion riding nearby. “We’ll cut those tiny heads off those furry necks before they know what’s hit them!”

“That’s right! For Captain Leegan!”

“Revenge! Revenge!”

Their hearts stirring with anticipation of the coming battle, the knights lowered their faceplates and rechecked the edges of their blades, while the crossbowmen spread out and made sure that their quivers were ready to hand. As they prepared, the cloud of dust rising from beyond the dune-ridge grew larger and began to spread, as if it would engulf the Mongauli host entirely.

“Well, it seems the Sem mean business this time. Looks like there’s a lot of them,” one of the blue knights remarked, watching the dust cloud that revealed their enemy’s movements as it shifted in the morning wind.

“Nonsense!” replied another. “No matter how many of them come, they’ve certainly not got three times our number! And even if they did, that would just mean that once each of us wrings three monkey necks a piece we’ll be out of enemies!” The knight laughed raucously at his own jest.

“Watch the poison arrows,” his friend noted grimly, checking the fit of his neckpiece.

The Mongauli soldiers did not know that the combined forces of the Raku, Guro, Tubai, and Rasa added up to less than half the number of the invaders. Lacking the aid of the Karoi tribe, who were as big and as strong as the Raku and better warriors, the Sem army had suffered heavy losses over the course of its raids, and the wildling ranks were dwindling. The Sem had done what they could to keep this fact a secret from the Mongauli, sending out women and youths in each skirmish as decoys to raise dust clouds and conceal the warriors’ true position and strength.

It made little difference to the Mongauli today, however. The men were flushed red with a fierce determination to meet the crafty monkeys in battle and kill every last one of them, be they one hundred or one hundred thousand.

The messengers ran down the lines, transmitting orders from Amnelis’ central command. Once again, the host spread out like a flower blooming. Black, blue, and red petals extended from a white center. The crossbowmen moved to the outer ranks, with the footmen spreading out among them to defend them when the enemy closed in. The knights swiftly formed into several lines behind the front defenses and calmed their horses with soft voices and gestures, waiting their turn.

“Aii, aii, aiiie!”

The wildling war cry seemed to erupt from the sand all around the Mongauli. It was soon followed by the Sem tribes themselves, appearing at the top of the gently sloping dunes in a half-circle formation that threatened the center and both flanks of the invaders’ army.

“And so the monkeys have come.”

Count Marus glared at the Sem horde above them. He still had his faceplate raised, to get a better view of the dunes, and the ragged white hair and beard that protruded from beneath his blue helm shone brilliantly in the sun and wind.

“Lord Captain, Lord Captain! Please, lower your visor!” Garanth exclaimed, fearing that his lord would make a perfect target for the Sem poison arrows. Marus quickly lowered his faceplate, but before the blue-painted iron mask covered his captain’s eyes, Garanth noticed the worry reflected within them as they stared at the tiny wildlings atop the dunes.

“We need but a twist to rout them,” the lieutenant said soothingly.

“Garanth,” said the count, turning toward him.

“Yes, Lord Captain?”

“Do not die today.” Perhaps the count meant to add: Not here in this sandy hell.

Garanth laughed. He was about to respond when the Sem began to charge down the dune like an avalanche, without order or formation, raising a wild cry as they hurtled toward the Mongauli lines. The battle was joined.

The sun blazed hot and white in the sky, searing the tops of the dunes, baking the men and wildings below. The method of battle was a familiar one for both armies. Though the Gohran army’s spirits were higher than ever before, this was, after all, another clash of a kind that had grown grimly monotonous over the past few days, and they had no new position or strategy to make this one any different from all the rest.

The Mongauli crossbowmen in the front ranks loosed flights of shot that sent up puffs of white dust where they hit the sand and knocked over the Sem they struck. Then, as soon as the enemy drew near, the crossbowmen retreated behind the lines of the foot-soldiers and took cover. The infantry layered their shields and crouched down low, slowly advancing while protecting themselves from the poison arrows of the wildlings.

The Sem charged down the dunes, giving a tremendous war cry as they came. They were a mob, with no discernable order or strategy; their faces were painted with evil colors in garish patterns, the traditional marks of the wildling warriors, and their eyes blazed with crazed ferocity. They held blowpipes in their hands which they put to their mouths as they ran, interrupting their yells just long enough to fire volleys of tiny black arrows. Not pausing to aim, they could only hope that a few of the missiles would strike chinks in the Mongauli’s armor so that the poison could do its deadly work.

When they had drawn so near to their foes that they no longer had time to reload their weapons as they ran, they slung the tubes into the netting that they wore on their backs and drew out stone axes for the melee. Then like a storm the Sem crashed into the ranks of the human footmen, the nimble wildings running up the overlapping shields of the infantry as if they were climbing ladders, vaulting high and then descending among the ranks of men to strike at them with their axes.

Some of the footmen, who had learned to anticipate this tactic by now, were able to use their shields to knock the vaulting Sem back. Others thrust out spears between the shields, skewering wildling warriors in mid-flight. But where their first assault was stymied, the Sem quickly joined hands to form living springboards and sent their companions flying over the front row of soldiers, until everywhere inside the lines was a frenzy of deadly hand-to-hand combat.

The footsoldiers dropped their shields and whirled around, drawing their swords to meet the first wave of Sem even as more of the wildlings came down the dunes in an avalanche of painted faces and swinging axes.

Further back in the ranks, the knights in their bright orderly rows wavered with barely contained impatience. The horses whinnied nervously, smelling blood on the wind. Then at last the signal to attack was given. As one, the knights raised their whips and struck the flanks of their mounts, urging them into furious motion.

“Strike down the monkeys!”

“For Captain Leegan!”

“Mongaul! Mongaul!”

With loud cries the armored cavalry advanced, led by the blue knights and the aged Count Marus. Behind them came the black knights under the command of Irrim and Tangard, and finally, the red knights, led by Astrias. The white knights remained in a strong formation surrounding the lady general’s flag behind the center of the battle lines. From the perspective of this central command, the three knightly orders that were now advancing seemed like rivers of color, rushing toward the chaos of the fight as if to sweep away the swirling melee of footsoldiers and wildling warriors. It was a dazzling sight, both the riders and their armored mounts gleaming so brightly in the morning sun that they were painful to the eye. Riding tall, the knights drew their sparkling longswords and crashed into the battle lines. Fiercely the riders lashed out on every side, sending Sem heads flying where they struck.

Yet the Sem, too, had grown accustomed to this kind of combat, and they put their past lessons to deadly use. Far more agile than the heavily armored knights, they sought to dodge under the wide arcs of the cavalry’s swords and launched themselves at the horses’ legs, cutting and jabbing, all the while shrieking their high-pitched war cries. If this tactic failed, some worked in pairs to attack the mounted knights from above, one Sem acting as a platform from which the other leaped high with ax or dagger swinging. Others thrust poisoned stone spears up at the horses’ bellies, or clambered onto stirrups and saddles where they clung like fleas, swiftly jabbing with their poisoned spears at the knights’ faces and throats.

As they had in all the previous encounters, the Sem made up for their inferiority in numbers, strength, and weapons by capitalizing on their tremendous speed and agility, making this an even fight. The Mongauli were warriors trained for battle in the green Middle Country, where sturdy protection was more often important than speed. Here, the heavy armor and helms that they wore restricted their movements; with their faceplates lowered, their vision, too, was restricted, and they remained vulnerable to strikes that pierced their throats and armpits or attacks that hamstrung their steeds. Their horses were not well suited to running across the drifting sands, which sucked at their hooves and made them stumble whenever they sought to turn. Moreover, few among the human fighters had the reflexes to respond to the darting quickness of the Sem warriors.

Atop their rearing chargers, the knights thrashed like cattle trying to beat off pestering flies with their tails. On the firm, open terrain of their homeland, or on broad city streets where they could gallop freely, they could have cut down a force of un-horsed attackers almost at will, or better yet, used swords and lances like proper knights against another force of cavalry. That was battle! But this killing of nimble wildings was aggravating and difficult, and their tactics were ill suited for the work.

Unable to fall back on their training, they sought to use their much greater strength to the utmost against their foes. Many a Sem warrior leapt upon a mounted knight only to be shaken off and thrown to the ground, there to be trampled by the churning hooves of the warhorses. And when the Mongauli longswords struck home, they could split the skulls of the Sem with ease, scattering blood and brains across the battlefield. Many of the knights adopted a sweeping sideways stroke, as though they were cutting wheat back in the autumn fields of their homeland; this way they could attack several Sem at once, and those who were not quick enough to jump over the flashing blades or duck low beneath them would be cut entirely in half and sent tumbling gruesomely, their shrill voices shrieking and failing. But the Sem rarely stayed in one place long enough for the swords to hit their mark, and so the battle raged on, neither side gaining a clear advantage.

“Aiii! Kweeeh! Yiiaaah!” the cries of the Sem filled the air with indecipherable insults and curses.

Marus scowled at the noise. The old count was right in the midst of the attack, maintaining his position at the head of his blue knights. His blue captain’s plume waved above the cavalry vanguard as he cut through the fray, moving no slower than many of the younger knights. Garanth rode close to his side as one of his flag bearers, guarding the count without pause.

From time to time as the melee eddied around him Marus would withdraw his beloved blade, drenched in wildling gore, and pull back behind his flagbearers to rest for a moment and look over the battle. There was chaos on all sides, spraying blood and flying sand, horses rearing and wildings swarming so thickly that it was hard to tell one from the other.

Once, the severed head of a Sem flew up into the air, trailing a red gout of blood across the men below, a grimace of hatred frozen on its painted face. This brought a round of cheers from the invaders, but the sound was soon lost beneath the frantic whinnying of horses and screams of men as two steeds were brought down by Sem spears and collapsed on the crimson sand, throwing their riders to be trampled under the wildling horde.

“Hmm,” Marus grumbled as he surveyed the scene, easing his thirst with a flask of water handed to him by one of the knights of his guard. Just a few yards away the battle raged. His men were fighting with their faceplates lowered, knocking aside the poisoned spears that were thrust at the weak armor at their necks, trying to hold the line against a determined Sem advance. Their shining blue armor was stained with the blood of friend and foe.

“Hah! Foul monkeys!” Marus heard a voice exclaim behind him. “By Istar, they’re fiendish, smelly brutes!”

The voice was familiar, young and lively; it came from the tall rider who now rode swiftly past the count, swinging his sword with determined ferocity, cutting down Sem to right and left. His skill was impressive. The count’s hard-set eyes softened. “Eru. You’ll not die here, either,” he muttered softly. Garanth, by his side, gave no sign that he had heard the count. Silently the lieutenant raised his faceplate and took a gulp of water.

“How many youths have perished under these flags,” Marus continued, too low for even Garanth to hear, “on the streets of Parros during the War of the Black Dragon, and now here, painting the wastes of Nospherus with their blood—for Mongaul, for Mongaul…” The count’s eyes were filled with deep sadness. “For Mongaul,” he repeated. “I understand why we fight. I know it is our destiny to rule this land. But I do not want to see another young man fall. Not one.” He shook his head and gazed out toward the front lines once more. Eru of Argon was gone. Like a galloping thunderbolt he had disappeared into the melee, cutting as he went.

I am getting old, thought Marus, then he cleared his throat and turned to his lieutenant. “Back into the fray, Garanth.”

“Ready, Lord Captain,” said Garanth, slapping his chest in a firm salute, which Marus knew meant: I am old, but I can fight harder than any younger man.

Marus waited for him to lower his faceplate and then shouted “For Mongaul!” and charged toward the turmoil of the lines, sword swinging.

“For Mongaul!”

The shout went up on every side, the men answering their captain.

Astrias, accompanied by his lieutenant, Pollak, sweltered back in the rearguard. He regarded his placement in today’s formation as a clear sign that the lady general’s dissatisfaction with him had not yet abated. When it came time for a retreat, or should they need to about-face and attack an enemy from behind, the position of rearguard could be one of great honor, but not today. Today they were to meet the enemy head-on, and chase them head-on should they withdraw. Only the most useless of captains would have been assigned to the rearguard today.

And now the battle was joined and playing out a good distance from his position, so far that he could barely hear the courageous shouts of his fellow knights taking enemy heads. Astrias’s mood grew darker.

He should be up there with them, winning victory—and winning her heart.

Although he had not yet fully realized it, Astrias was very much enamored of the Lady General Amnelis, she of the shining golden hair and cool emerald eyes. She made him want to achieve great things, to win her praise—and, just maybe, her smile of satisfaction. But from the very beginning of this excursion all his efforts had gone awry. First he had failed to capture Guin and the four other fugitives, leading most of his strike force to bloody death in the Nospherus interior… And then, when he tried to make up for his failure by chasing down the Sem without waiting for the lady’s orders, the vanguard he urged on had fallen into the yidoh trap and Captain Leegan had perished. Both times he had escaped while others died. Both times he had come back defeated, ashamed of his failure, ashamed to be alive.

If I had only been given the front lines this time, I would be washing off that shame, finding a way to make this disgrace right again.

But instead of giving Astrias a chance to redeem himself, his liege had scorned and scolded him harshly, throwing him in the rearguard. Just thinking about it set a fire in Astrias’s breast.

Everything is his fault! His fault! Guin…

Just mouthing the name in silence was enough to make his heart tremble with hate so hot it nearly drove him mad. Guin, that leopard-headed freak, was the one who had shamed him, had made his beloved goddess look upon him with cold eyes. He was the one who had brought Astrias so low. One more mistake and the young knight—once admired by all as the Red Lion of Gohra—would lose his post as captain. Amnelis had said as much.

The thing that stoked the fires of his shame the highest was that the strange warrior had not even taken him seriously when he had challenged the fiend to single combat.

You are no challenge for me, little one. Wait twenty years and come again. Then I will fight you.

He knew Guin had been laughing at him behind that leopard mask—a cold, harsh laughter, not of victory, but of pity! Thinking on that moment, Astrias felt his shame burn white-hot, casting tall shadows of anger.

And now I’ve been told to wait in the back, where I’ve not a chance of taking one enemy head, not one!

All Astrias could hope for was the impossible—a sneak attack from behind, led by Guin himself.

I’ll show him my mettle when next we meet! If only I am given the chance…

The young captain had been thinking of nothing else for a while now. From time to time he rose in his saddle, scanning the fray far ahead of him for a sight of the leopard-man towering above the clashing armies. Unable to spot his nemesis, he felt uneasy at first, wondering where the terrible warrior might be and what he might be planning. His unease changed to elation as he considered the possibility that Guin might indeed appear behind the army and answer his misguided wishes.

Come out, Guin-fiend! Then we’ll see who’s the little one! I challenge you, Guin!

“Captain!” Pollak called out as though he’d read Astrias’s mind. “I wonder what’s going on. I don’t see that leopard-head anywhere.”

Astrias started, then assumed an air of nonchalance. “Perhaps he’s leading another party around to the back.”

“I would wish nothing else,” Pollak replied. He knew well what it was that his captain truly desired. “Then we’ll hunt that freak ourselves. Captain.”

“What?”

“Who do you think he is, sir?”

“A good question.”

“Where did he come from? You would think we would have heard if such a warrior lived among us in the Middle Country.”

“He might just be someone we know. Someone famous.”

Astrias thought back on the discussion at the war council three days before.

“I wonder what we’d see if we took off that mask.”

“Indeed.” Astrias seemed suddenly uncomfortable talking about his adversary, but Pollak continued, unaware of his captain’s mood.

“What is he thinking, anyhow—a man, taking the wildling Sem as his allies? Indeed I cannot believe that the royal house of Parros has actually joined forces with these desert barbarians. I saw the spires of Crystal. It was a beautiful place. Every Parrosian I saw was beautiful, too, all fair and slender, with skin as white as alabaster.”

Astrias said nothing. He was thinking of someone more beautiful still, but these thoughts were madness, and certainly nothing he could share with another, not even his trusted lieutenant.

“The royal family of Parros and the Sem—it’s impossible,” Pollak declared with finality. Then he laughed harshly. “But these are all things we can find out once we capture the leopard-man and persuade him to spit out what he knows. Captain? Are you listening?”

“Huh? Ah, what?” Astrias turned, pretending that he had been surveying the battle.

“In any case,” Pollak added, “it is our utmost priority to do whatever we must to take the leopard-man, and bring him before the lady general. Or bring his head, at least.”

“Absolutely.” Astrias smiled with the thought. Then his tone changed as he gazed out toward the front lines again. “Ah, Pollak.”

The other looked, hearing the anger in his captain’s voice.

“Look, they’re doing it again. The Sem are pulling back again.” Then Astrias slapped his saddle and swore. The Sem didn’t ever want this battle to end, obviously. They had had their fun and now they were retreating, again.

Dom dom dom dom dom dom…

The wildling war drums beat a quick rhythm, mingling with the screeching war cries of the Sem as they turned and ran back up the dunes en masse, without discernable order or pattern.

This time, however, the knights of Mongaul were not of a mind to let them leave.

“Wait, you cowards!”

“We won’t let you escape this time, monkeys!”

“We’ll wipe them out! Follow them! Follow!”

“Begin pursuit!”

“Orders! Orders! Pursue the Sem!”

Today, the Mongauli army was a mighty arrow loosed from a ready bow. There was no turning back, no slowing down. They had waited far too long to let this opportunity pass.

“Garanth!” Marus wheeled his horse around to join his lieutenant in the line of blue knights that was quickly reforming at the base of the dune.

“My lord!”

“After them!”

Count Marus waved the baton in his hand and quickly the blue knights of Tauride showed the quality of their training, spreading rapidly into five lines for the pursuit.

“After Marus Corps! Forward!”

In an instant, the desert was transformed into a dry riverbed along which a four-colored flood of men and horses readied to pour in haste.

“Doalspit!” Astrias swore far behind them and reluctantly formed up the men of his rearguard. Then the blue, the black, the white and, lastly, the red knights of Mongaul shouted their battle cries and began to move forward, chasing the retreating Sem up the face of the dune. The battle for Nospherus was entering its final act.